My most effective therapies come without a prescription

This post is part of an ongoing series chronicling my battle with abdominal pain.

My bowels have been set free!! Interesting thing is that my doctors had nothing do with it. Instead I have a combination of natural, old fashioned, and self created therapies to thank. Late in the month of November I began castor oil therapy. I use flannel cloths soaked in castor oil, place them on my belly, cover with plastic wrap and a thin towel, and top it off with a heating pad. I do this for 45 minutes for several times a week. This old fashioned remedy supposedly dissolves adhesions. Since October I have also decreased the time between my Disney Therapy sessions. I began to feel ripping in my abdomen prior to Thanksgiving, and it increased after my Thanksgiving Day visit to Disneyland. Since then I have been able to eat without pain and have had mostly normal bowel movements. My energy level has improved as well. This past week I, with the help from my daughter, cleaned out and reorganized my kitchen pantry. It has been over six months since I have been able to help my daughter and husband with the housework, so to finally having the energy to tackle one or two chores a day has been more than amazing.

Since my doctors never offered me anything except for pills, I can say without a doubt that they had nothing to do with my improved state of affairs. Part of me feels like every doctor/surgeon visit, test, etc… was a waste of time and money. In the sense that they did absolutely nothing to help my situation, I am right to feel this way. However, each visit and test was necessary because my physicians are fully aware of what is going on inside of me and I won’t have to repeat those tests the next time adhesions take a hold of my bowels. Not only that, but the pain I was in was far more intense and frightening than anything I have ever felt before. I have learned to live with high levels of pain and am thankful that I haven’t reached the point of disgust with our medical system that I avoid going to the ER when my conditions have me fearing for my life.

A future attack is inevitable, because each rip and tear will produce more scarring which will lead to more adhesions. The best thing I can do is to make the most of my time before it happens again. The reprieve my bowels, bladder, and rectum are experiencing could end any day. The pulling, twisting, and strangling could return in a few days, weeks, months, and if I am really lucky it won’t return for a year or more. In the meantime I plan to continue with my Disney Therapy, castor oil therapy, and look for abdominal exercises that could help loosen adhesions as well.